Police ID victim of Oregon shooting as 14-year-old

A gunman killed a student at the Reynolds High School east of Portland Tuesday and the shooter is also dead, police said.

TROUTDALE, Ore. » A teen gunman armed with a rifle shot and killed a 14-year-old student Tuesday and injured a teacher before he likely killed himself at a high school in a quiet Columbia River town in Oregon, authorities said.

After the shooting stopped, police spotted the suspect slumped on a toilet in a bathroom at Reynolds High School. Officers used a robot with a camera to investigate and discovered the suspect was dead and that he had likely killed himself, Troutdale police spokesman Sgt. Carey Kaer said.

His victim was identified as freshman Emilio Hoffman, who was "loved by all," police Chief Scott Anderson said at a Tuesday news conference. He said Hoffman was found in the boys' locker room.

A girl who used to be Hoffman's girlfriend said he was "a good kid" and a "down-to-earth guy."

"He was very caring, he loved to joke around," said Savannah Venegas, 16.

Hoffman lived with his mother and had an older brother and two younger sisters, both in elementary school, Venegas said.

Anderson said he spoke with Hoffman's family, saying they had a difficult road ahead and sought privacy.

"They wouldn't have just picked him," she said. "It had to be, just, random."

Authorities have tentatively identified the gunman but his name is being withheld until his family is notified, Anderson said.

The teacher, Todd Rispler, had injuries weren't life-threatening, and he was treated at the scene. Rispler, a 50-year-old physical education instructor and former track coach, went to the office and initiated the school lockdown, Anderson said. The attack panicked students and they were told to go quietly to their classrooms.

Freshman Morgan Rose, 15, said she hunkered down in a locker room with another student and two teachers.

"It was scary in the moment. Now knowing everything's OK, I'm better," she said.

Freshman Daniel DeLong, 15, said after the shooting that he saw a physical education teacher at the school with a bloodied shirt. He said he was texting friends to make sure they were all OK.

"It just, like, happened so fast, you know?" he said.

Anderson said two on-campus police officers were the first to respond to reports of a shooting. The officers and a tactical team sent to the school "brought this to a conclusion," the chief said, without elaborating.

"Oregon hurts as we try to make sense of a senseless act of violence," Gov. John Kitzhaber said in a statement.

The first reports of shots fired came around 8 a.m. on the next-to-last-day of classes. Police initially seemed uncertain about whether there was a live shooter in the school.

Students were eventually led from the school with hands up or on their heads. Parents and students were reunited in a supermarket parking lot.

Mandy Johnson said her daughter called from a friend's phone.

"I thank God that she's safe," said Johnson, who has three younger children. "I don't want to send my kids to school anymore."

The Reynolds School District issued a statement mourning the loss of one of its students.

Reynolds is the second-largest high school in Oregon, with about 2,800 students. The school is about 15 miles from Portland and its students come from several communities.

During the evacuation of the school, authorities found another student with a gun and he was taken into custody. That weapon and arrest were not related to the shooting, Anderson said.

The Oregon violence came less than a week after a gunman opened fire on a college campus in neighboring Washington state, killing a 19-year-old man and wounding two others. It follows a string of mass shootings that have disturbed the nation, including one on Sunday in Nevada that left two Las Vegas police officers and a civilian dead.

The Tuesday shooting was the first fatal school shooting in Oregon since May 1998 when 15-year-old Kip Kinkel killed two students and wounded 25 others at Thurston High School in Springfield near Eugene. He killed his parents prior to the attack and is serving a 111-year prison sentence.

AP writers Gosia Wozniacka and Steven DuBois in Portland and Alina Hartounian in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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Jerry_Dwrote:

These school shootings must be the mastermind of leftest domestic terrorists, committing heinous crimes involving firearms in order to get the masses embittered towards the Second Amendment. Hey, don't knock this theory. After all, and to quote a famous author of crime novels, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

on June 10,2014 | 07:51AM

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Morimotowrote:

The thing is you haven't eliminated the highly probable theory that these shootings are the work of crazy individuals who have a grievance against society and have nothing to do with gun rights. So your attempt at sounding smart fails miserably.

on June 10,2014 | 08:40AM

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falsewrote:

Kids with guns at 11 talking about it on Social Media need to be tracked. Are we tracking the problems in the schools from level to level or just shredding the documentation? We bury the problems because we don't want to deal with them and they explode and the observers are dumbfounded. Evidence to treat the student early was dismissed or buried. It's amazing how much there is that just doesn't get the light of day until it crashes and burns the innocent.

on June 10,2014 | 09:41AM

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MakaniKaiwrote:

Well said false! Excellent post.

on June 10,2014 | 10:10AM

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TigerEyewrote:

Problem is that there are a lot of kids in a lot of schools, tweeting or what have you several thousand times per week. The resources needed for this type of tracking would be prohibitively expensive. The need to "do something" has resulted in Zero Tolerance policies that are scorn-worthy seemingly everywhere.

on June 10,2014 | 10:17AM

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HAL9000wrote:

Every racked. That doesn't stop tis kinda stuff. You can't stop tis stuff before it happens. Just go ask Israeli.

on June 10,2014 | 10:18AM

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Morimotowrote:

Seems to me more like a numbers game. Do you know how many 11 year old kids are talking about guns? In some places kids learn to shoot at 10 years old or even younger. You must have read there was evidence the shooter had mental problems in another story because I don't see it in this story. You're right more needs to be done but I know we won't be able to catch everyone. There just aren't enough resources to catch everyone.

on June 10,2014 | 10:25AM

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falsewrote:

Yes, but what are we doing for the ones who have declared themselves?

on June 10,2014 | 02:05PM

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TigerEyewrote:

The SA could eliminate the imbecilic and the pointlessness that remains by deleting your post...

on June 10,2014 | 09:34AM

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GooglyMooglywrote:

The paranoid rely on conspiracy to explain away what others call common sense.

on June 10,2014 | 09:58AM

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falsewrote:

You never know what will trigger someone with the power of guns in a storeroom. Their view of their defines how they will act or react. They will insert themselves emotionally and without notice. Therefore anyone who threatens to "take someone down" is to be taken seriously. We stay far away from that personality and wish that family the best. No one threatens my child and expects to get a pass. Just eliminate all contact and that planet of people don't exist.

on June 10,2014 | 07:39PM

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falsewrote:

Shootings and more shootings no less at schools. What the heck is happening out there. Hawaii is not immune. Let's hope this will never happen here.

on June 10,2014 | 09:54AM

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NanakuliBosswrote:

Hawaii get Aloha Spirit and less guns per capita, so highly unlikely a school shooting would happen. Plus they just settle it with beef um.

on June 10,2014 | 10:15AM

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falsewrote:

It will. Have had two separate gun event in the classroom over the span of a career. The threat is real. The long term response is benign. That's the problem and that's why it's so scary. The system works really well to shred the evidence so that the problem doesn't exist.

on June 10,2014 | 10:23AM

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Morimotowrote:

It just takes one committed person for something like this to happen. And yes Hawaii isn't immune despite what some might think.

on June 10,2014 | 10:26AM

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pridonwrote:

Why doesn't the pervasive NSA survillance pick up on some of this before it happens. Many post their intentions. NSA totally missed the marathon bombers. So we spend billions invading privacy, but get few results.

on June 10,2014 | 10:51AM

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Morimotowrote:

Why? Because of limited resources. You aren't privy to all the acts of terrorism that were prevented due to NSA surveillance so you can't say there are only a "few results". There are over 300 million people in this country. As invasive as the NSA is, there's no way they can catch everyone. That's like saying the police should catch every crime before it happens. That will never happen.

on June 10,2014 | 01:04PM

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HanabataDayswrote:

Xerox murders, 1999?

on June 10,2014 | 11:37AM

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Morimotowrote:

He just said Hawaii is not immune. I can't remember if we've ever had a fatal school shooting here.

on June 10,2014 | 01:06PM

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falsewrote:

Xerox surfaces every time we pass by. We remember the victims. Following that there was DOE that went to prison for involvement with receiving gun parts in the mail. Still got paid while incarcerated. How does that work? It's all around us under some rocks.

on June 10,2014 | 02:10PM

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Kealiiwrote:

How about the Farrington HS shooting in the parking lot after school ended? I believe it was gang-related.

on June 10,2014 | 05:50PM

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HD36wrote:

Two Men Use Girl As Human Shield — Until Her Father Guns Them Down
A St. Louis couple is likely thankful to have guns in their home after they were forced to use them to defend their daughter against two men Monday night.
The men, one of whom had an extensive rap sheet, confronted the couples’ 17 year-old daughter after she stepped outside of the house to go to her car, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Cortez McClinton, 33, and Terrell Johnson, 31, held a gun to the girl’s head and used her as a shield as they entered the family home, where a five-year old child was also present.
The girl’s father and mother witnessed the abduction, and both retrieved their guns. When McClinton and Johnson entered, the father fired several shots, hitting both men. The girl’s mother fired one shot but missed.
Johnson died at the scene. McClinton was wounded but was able to scramble off. He had his brother take him to the hospital.
In 2010, McClinton was charged with shooting another man. Charges were eventually dropped due to lack of witness participation. He also had drug possession and distribution charges against him.
McClinton is charged with second-degree murder, kidnapping, burglary, and criminal armed action and is being held on $1 million bond.
(h/t The Blaze)
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on June 10,2014 | 08:43PM

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paradiddlewrote:

This type of activity (murder/violence) has been on-going since the dawn of mankind. While there appears (and is) to be an increase of violence, I suspect the drastic increase in human population and the overwhelming presense of world-wide, instant "news" access may distort our perspective of it's actual scope. For example, population of USA is now 317 million versus 155 million in 1950 (good 'ole days). If .001% were victims of violence then and now, it would equate to 317,000 people now versus 155,000 then. Still, very scary!

on June 10,2014 | 12:46PM

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ResponsibleCitizenwrote:

How many people have to die before our legislators get to the REAL cause of all these violent offenders? And don't give me this ban guns bullcrap. Since this countries forming, nearly all citizens where armed and guns and other weapons available to anyone and every one, it is your right to be armed to protect yourself! Why only now is there such a marked increase of crazy violence and mass killings? The answer lies else ware, not in the tools, but in the person committing the acts. It is high time they stop avoiding the issue, which I suspect is the drugs that are given, like candy, to these mentally unstable, and sometimes even mentally stable individuals. These drugs, in my suspicion, put them over the edge. Which is even listed as know side effects.... But where is that data? Is it even being considered? Or is these drug companies too powerful, rich, and greedy for the government to even question??????????

on June 10,2014 | 03:56PM

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whs1966wrote:

While I agree with NanakuliBoss that the aloha spirit and low gun ownership have so far spared us this kind of tragedy, we must recognize that our school campuses--and our haumana--are especially vulnerable. While many, possibly even most, mainland schools are in a single building, which makes it easy to control access, our campuses are wide open. Therefore, access to our campuses is easy, making it impossible to catch a nut-case before he or she wreaks havoc at a school.

on June 10,2014 | 04:56PM

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paulokadawrote:

Another copycat trying to get even?

on June 10,2014 | 06:21PM

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HD36wrote:

Two Men Use Girl As Human Shield — Until Her Father Guns Them Down
A St. Louis couple is likely thankful to have guns in their home after they were forced to use them to defend their daughter against two men Monday night.
The men, one of whom had an extensive rap sheet, confronted the couples’ 17 year-old daughter after she stepped outside of the house to go to her car, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Cortez McClinton, 33, and Terrell Johnson, 31, held a gun to the girl’s head and used her as a shield as they entered the family home, where a five-year old child was also present.
The girl’s father and mother witnessed the abduction, and both retrieved their guns. When McClinton and Johnson entered, the father fired several shots, hitting both men. The girl’s mother fired one shot but missed.
Johnson died at the scene. McClinton was wounded but was able to scramble off. He had his brother take him to the hospital.
In 2010, McClinton was charged with shooting another man. Charges were eventually dropped due to lack of witness participation. He also had drug possession and distribution charges against him.
McClinton is charged with second-degree murder, kidnapping, burglary, and criminal armed action and is being held on $1 million bond.
(h/t The Blaze)
Follow Chuck on Twitter